Ann Hirsch (American, b. 1985) works across video, performance, and installation to examine how gender, sexuality, and identity are represented and performed online and in popular culture. Her early practice moved from largely online work into durational performances, including gaining popularity as a YouTube “cam whore” and appearing on reality television, later deconstructed through further artworks and writing. She has been called “the godmother of internet girlhood”.
Hirsch's early work centers on three projects the artist has described as her own “greatest hits”: The Scandalishious Project (2008-09), Here for You (Or My Brief Love Affair with Frank Maresca) (2010), and Twelve (2013). For The Scandalishious Project, she posted more than 100 videos over two years to a YouTube channel as the character Caroline, combining the tropes of the geek, the oversharer, and the provocative dancer to undermine stereotypes of young women online. Here for You (Or My Brief Love Affair with Frank Maresca) was drawn from her 2010 appearance on a reality television show as one of fifteen women competing for a male contestant, a role she disrupted by performing an explicit rap song that got her removed from the show. Twelve, an interactive iPad application, narrates a twelve-year-old girl's online relationship with an older man, based on Hirsch's own adolescent experience in a mid-1990s chat room.
